Berwick to Edinburgh
Managed to start at 8am only to find the roads were just ice. Not even patches, but completely ice over. Nihtmare as I had three 200meter climbs. If you stop, you will not start again as the back wheel will just spin on the spot. Averaged just 16kmph as even the down hill parts needed to be done incredibly slowly. The hills do have a bit of snow on them. There were sections where hail embedded itself into the ice, so that gave me a little grip. Constantly having your hands on the brakes in -2 degree weather makes your hands go numb very quickly. I needed to stop three times to warm them up as they stopped being able to squease the brakes. There was a bit of passing sleet but nothing as bad as yesterday but having a puncture in these conditions is really horrid. First step to changing an inner tube is the cup of tea. After the last hill, there was nice dip into “Peas Bay” where there are crazy people kite surfing.
Back out nd along a horrid dirt path next to the A1 and rail line. Here I was incredibly worried that I would get another puncture and I ran out of inner tubes. I would have to get to smewhere warm and dry to patch the tues I have up. So once I got to Dunbar I thought I should just call it a day. It was nearly 1pm and I would only have an 2.5 hours left before sunset to do a stretch that took nearly 5 hours in the morning. There were no more hills, but it was damn cold, weather report was predicting more sleet and I was getting worried about getting a puncture on the next sectin which looked like more dirt roads.Caught the train to Edinburgh. So, just 60km today. With the total distance sitting at 790km I am annoyed at not breaking the 805km mark needed to get the “Mini Proclaimer” (500 miles). Tomorrow I have a couple hours in the morning before I go to Manchester so I will have a little ride around.